Lots of serious collapsing at the 6km in Terre Haute at the finish line for the runners finishing 1 minute back of the leader.
Is that normal?
I watched for fun and didn't expect it to be like cross country skiing. I guess it is "cross-country", so you have to borrow some theatrics?
cross country skiing??? wrote:
Lots of serious collapsing at the 6km in Terre Haute at the finish line for the runners finishing 1 minute back of the leader.
Is that normal?
I watched for fun and didn't expect it to be like cross country skiing. I guess it is "cross-country", so you have to borrow some theatrics?
You were watching the year that Chris Solinsky was dragged off camera, correct?
No. Today's race in Terre Haute. The 6km, not the 8km.
http://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/11/2014-ncaa-cross-country-video-womens-race-live-stream-replay/
watch from 30:00 to 31:00. (Runners finishing after 20 minutes).
Yes, it is common. There is always an issue with clearing the chute in a big race with many runners of approximately equal quality. Look, for instance, at the finish of the Wisconsin Invite, and in that race they are not giving their last full measure of devotion (in a racing sense, not a literal-Lincoln sense).
I have a better question. What is it with all the women helping each other cross the finish line? It's happened a bunch of times in high school races this year and now at the freaking NCAA Championships.
Here is the video of the Baylor chick struggling to make it to the finish:
Ok, I get her teammate helping her make it to the line. They are teammates, they know each other, I hope the one stopping to help knows she's not in her team's top 5 so the scoring doesn't matter.
But then the girl from Minnesota stops to help out too. What is it with this? This is a race and presumably you should be running all out, sprinting your heart out to get to the line before your competitors. And in the midst of this you stop to help someone walk/crawl to the finish, just so they can be DQd anyway because of your outside assistance?
You aren't coming across a struggling stranger alone in the woods on your Sunday long run. This is a race! And they are 5-feet from the finish line, they'll be ok. They are not in any immediate danger and if they are, there are medical professionals feet away who are much better trained to handle the situation than you are.
Personally if it was me who collapsed I wouldn't want the help because 1) I'd get DQd and 2) I'd feel like an idiot being helped across the line in a freaking XC 6K, give me a break.
Maybe I'm just being an ass hole (and I probably am), but I can't help but roll my eyes at these "feel good sportsmanship" stories.
I can see being extremely fatigued. How do you get to a place where your legs dont work in a 6k race? There has to be something else going on there
Charming Charlie wrote:
have full or partial male partials beneath the cloth.
a partial partial ?
No, it's not normal. The runners in question are overly dramatic. Drama like this has been made to seem noble by social media and outlets like the Today Show, which do there best publicize any event involving even the least bit of self sacrifice. Personally, I like to see people act with dignity at the end of races. Act like you've been there before. It isn't war, no one is going to die from a cross country race.
I dont get it wrote:
I can see being extremely fatigued. How do you get to a place where your legs dont work in a 6k race? There has to be something else going on there
There probably is something else going on but that doesn't mean it's terrible. Have you ever run a race after being really sick all week, for example? Last time I tried that I collapsed at the finish and couldn't walk for the next two days because my legs got so much fluid in them. It was an XC 6K
You can't actively help another runner. You get them and yourself DQ'd. Once runners cross the line the race director needs to clear the chute. A half dozen volunteers can do this effectively if there are enough of them standing by.
I don't quite get the collapsing in the chute thing. I ran races for 25 years, many of them as hard as I could but I never collapsed in the finishing area. I saw Pre best Ngeno at the 1973 PAC 8 championships in XC and both men couldn't talk for several minutes but they didn't collapse.
The first girl that falls down is most likely the legitimate exhausted runner (but not always), everyone else afterwards has the fall down syndrome because if the girls in front of them fell down, they have to fall down otherwise they think people will believe they didn't give it there all in the race.
Watch any HS girl's longer distance races and wait for the first girl to fall and then it starts getting hilarious and predictable.
Ape man wrote:
No, it's not normal. The runners in question are overly dramatic. Drama like this has been made to seem noble by social media and outlets like the Today Show, which do there best publicize any event involving even the least bit of self sacrifice. Personally, I like to see people act with dignity at the end of races. Act like you've been there before. It isn't war, no one is going to die from a cross country race.
I wouldn't say they are overly dramatic. For me I always used to get heavy legs and light headed to the point of collapsing and passing out in a 5k race. not even a 6k. It has happened badly twice. One time during the last 200m and I had to crawl to the finish. Another time I collapsed after 2 miles and had to get taken by the paramedics.I was a sophomore in high school and ran in the high 19s.
After the second time which was one year after the first incident, I went to the doctors to find out what was wrong. After various tests the doctor determined I had low blood volume. So when I exercise vigorously, like pushing myself in a race, my blood vessels dilate instead of constrict. The blood flow is weak. All my blood pools in my legs and not enough reaches my brain. Having my brain be oxygen deprived results in light headedness and obviously I would eventually collapse.
They gave me a medication that helps with my blood volume and told me to have a very salty diet and drink a lot of water and gatorade to help with hydration. Before races I have a bouillon cube in hot water to get 1000mg of sodium and then a g2. A few weeks after finding all this out I had my state meet and ran a PR of 19:30. The next year I broke 18 in the 5k.
So dont call this girl dramatic. She could have an underlying health probem not even she knows about. If this happens to her often I would definitely get checked out. Just imagine how much better she could run if she didn't get light headed and heavy legs every time she pushed herself.
Natural response to too much sprint training and not enough base.
Simple solution: Keep it on the 'crete. No one will be collapsing then.
Seconding bv. I have Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia syndrome which essentially means that my heart rate increases and my blood pressure drops whenever I stand. I also have significant blood pooling in my feet (diagnosed in a nuclear med mri scan). My senior year of high school I would collapse after almost every race - sometimes during the middle - just because the pooling in my feet meant my brain wasn't getting enough oxygen. It was extremely embarassing.
Orthostatic hypotension is also common in people with eating disorders. Not that every woman who collapses has one but given the high prevalence of eating disorders in the sport, it's probable that a few of the ones collapsing are suffering from an ED.
How much blood is really going to be "pooling in the feet"? You must have huge feet.
POTsie wrote:
Seconding bv. I have Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia syndrome which essentially means that my heart rate increases and my blood pressure drops whenever I stand. I also have significant blood pooling in my feet (diagnosed in a nuclear med mri scan). My senior year of high school I would collapse after almost every race - sometimes during the middle - just because the pooling in my feet meant my brain wasn't getting enough oxygen. It was extremely embarassing.
Orthostatic hypotension is also common in people with eating disorders. Not that every woman who collapses has one but given the high prevalence of eating disorders in the sport, it's probable that a few of the ones collapsing are suffering from an ED.
Absolute rot.
replay wrote:
No. Today's race in Terre Haute. The 6km, not the 8km.
http://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/11/2014-ncaa-cross-country-video-womens-race-live-stream-replay/watch from 30:00 to 31:00. (Runners finishing after 20 minutes).
During the women's race, I was 10 meters past the finish line taking pictures. I was amazed by how many people were collapsing. I totally thought, "Ive never seen this happen in a men's race," which would lead me to think a lot of it was theatrical.
Of course, I've never sat just beyond the finish of a men's xc race so I can't say for sure. I wasn't allowed to be in the same spot for the men (they kicked me out and made me move up before the finish line). Next year, I'll try to get there and see what happens.
Or is there a video of the men's race. Have you compared them - but maybe that's not a fair comparison as the women's race was fast and honest, the men's race was a joke.
I have tons of photos of the collapses in our photo gallery like this one:
http://www.letsrun.com/photos/2014/ncaa-cross-women/imagepages/image352.phphttp://www.letsrun.com/photos/2014/ncaa-cross-women/index14.phpNext year, I'll stay in the chute for the men's race and see what happens.
You must be a newbie and wasn't a around when Letsrun had discussion of this classic Flotrack video in '07 (go to about 8:15 to the end):
It's the same phenomenon that is responsible for group hysteria afflicting women or the crying and wailing that was seen when the Beatles or other pop groups hit town.